I was out and about when WNYC’s interview with William Gibson first aired, but they’re got it available for listening from the archive. One of my favorite moments was Gibson’s answer to the inevitable question that always seems to pop up in regard to Pattern Recognition about why he’s chosen to set a novel in the present day, given his previous predilection for prognostication. His reply is similar to what I gathered from other interviews, and part of why I was so interested in reading the book: “Well, I think the weirdness factor, the sci-fi factor, in day to day reality has been increasing exponentially since long before I started writing, and that shift probably reflects that.”

As a side note, I’ve long harbored a deep and abiding hatred for RealPlayer, and was highly distressed when I realized I’d have to download the OS X version to listen to that interview, but it turns out that (as with many Mac applications updated for OS X), the suck factor has been considerably reduced. Installation and use are almost completely painless, if you can actually find the free player link on their site.